December 2013 Blog Posts (6)

While looking through old photographs, I came across one that I had used for my Christmas card in 1994. My son William was two-years-old and in love with animals. He played with toy animals, we read stories about animals, and we visited animals at the Roger Williams Park Zoo all the time. In fact, for Christmas that year, we gave out gift certificates that read, "This…

Snow on a Saturday—great! Who scheduled the recent snowstorm? My compliments. On Friday, we knew it was going to snow the next day. We cancelled our plans to travel and settled in for a day at home. No worries about piling up too many snow days that would force the kids to go to school until the end of June. Traveling to work wasn't a concern. I know, two Saturdays to go…

Woke up before dawn on our island in the Puget Sound to find our farm blazing white . Snow had fallen! We don't get much snow -- some years not any -- so seeing even the two inches or so dusting the Doug firs and the landscape is quite exciting. While the schools chose to have a late start day, we in the Vashon Wilderness Program chose tohave full-on fun. Gathering in circle in the meadow, the kids were high with rolling huge mud-balls of snow and making trails. Even so, a lovely quality of…

Throughout my childhood, our family farm in Pennsylvania was not only a summer getaway from city life, but also a place to host extended family and friends. Many times we were allowed to bring classmates from school. One particular friend shared my affinity for horses and was a frequent guest. We spent long summer days playing in the creek, exploring the woods and tending to the horses and cattle on the property, all without issue until one fateful evening when she learned the truth…

My son, Kaveh, and I have been taking a walk before school. This is not so easy on a weekday, but it is a high priority. We might make it around a block or two in ten minutes, and I am never, ever sorry. Here is why.

November was warm enough that we had several barefoot days in the forest. There was also a lot of wind, leading to daily accumulations of fir needles and small branches on the forest floor. We experienced many days of fog this month which led to opportunities to discuss what fog is. The children have noticed that the light in the forest is changing and the mornings are darker. This has been a great lead-in to talk about how the days are shorter now as…